Chapter Four
Candice
“How’s college going, my darling?” my mother asked on the phone. She knew about my trepidations, although I tried to keep them to a minimum so that she didn’t worry too much. I didn’t want her going to tell my father how I was really feeling. Anyway, it was still the early days, and I had to at least give myself a chance to settle in.
“It’s going okay. Nice place,” I said neutrally.
“Made any new friends?” she asked. I knew she worried about me. I wasn’t like all the other girls my age. I didn’t have a bevy of friends to hang around with on the weekends like I probably should. But she didn’t understand. It wasn’t easy when your father was so well known. I’d had friends before but they’d all been friends with me for the wrong reason. My father had a lot of work colleagues with kids my age, but I had never gotten along with them. The friends I did like, however, were never good enough for my father. So I could never win. I learned how to just spend time with myself. If only I had a brother or sister, that might have made all the difference in the world.
“Yeah,” I lied. “The people here are great.” I’m sure they would be, once they got to know me and once they gave me a chance to get to know them. Early days, I told myself over and over again.
“Oh, darling, that’s great to hear,” she said, and I felt bad for deceiving her. The truth was very different. I had yet to meet anyone that wanted to get to know me. The teachers had been nice though, especially Professor Jackson, but that wasn’t the same. Nevertheless, my mother seemed relieved that her daughter was doing so well.
“And how’s Derek doing? It must be so nice to be right by him,” she said.
“He’s good. Actually, he’s heading over here now. We’re going to have lunch together.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. I’ll let you go then. Please send him my love. Daddy sends his love too.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said and tried not to groan. My father loved Derek. If he knew that I was having second thoughts about him, he wouldn’t be happy. I wasn’t sure what my mother thought about Derek. She’d told me that she liked him, but I often got the impression that she was just saying that to placate my father. I could be wrong, though. Maybe she was telling the truth.
I put the phone down and waved Derek over. Again, it surprised me that I wasn’t more excited to see him. I needed to make more of an effort with him, so when he came over, I stood up and planted a big kiss on his mouth.
“Nice one, babe,” he said and grinned. “I hope everyone saw that. I like having a girlfriend as hot as you. I swear, nobody believed me when I said you were my girlfriend.”
I laughed. “Oh, I’m sure that’s not true.”
“So, how’s your first week been? Enjoying it here?”
“Yeah, it’s not bad. I have lots of work already. They don’t really let you ease into it, do they?”
“No way. Not at all. It’s all work, work, work here. That’s why there are always so many college parties. Nobody wants to work all the time. So, any favorite teachers?”
“I like Professor Jackson.”
He laughed. “You do? He’s such a dork, though. Do you know he’s only a few years older than us? Did you see the way he dresses? It’s so embarrassing. And those glasses. I mean, why doesn’t he get contacts? It would look so much better on him.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the way he dresses,” I said defensively. “I think it suits him.”
“Do you have a crush on the professor?” he asked, but I could see that he was teasing. I didn’t have a crush on him, but if I did, I didn’t see anything wrong with it. He was interesting at least.
“No, I don’t like him. Not like that. But he seems cool. You’re cruel. It’s nice to be different.”
He laughed. “I’d rather not be different if it means dressing like him.”
I shook my head and took a bite of my sandwich. We were sitting outside to have our lunch rather than in the cafeteria, and I was enjoying the feeling of the cool air on my face. I had never wanted to go to college, but as I looked around at the clusters of people around the field, I had to admit that there was something nice about it. Every now and again I actually felt like I was just another student, living just another normal life.
“Oh, by the way, do you know who Dominic Aarons is?” I asked.
He looked at me strangely. “Yeah, the linebacker. You mean him?”
I shrugged. I remembered Dominic saying something about that. “Yeah, I think so.”
“What about him? I don’t know him well, but I know of him.”
“Oh, well I’ve been paired up with him for a project, and he just looks so familiar to me. I was wondering if maybe he was well known or something?”
Derek scoffed and as he did so, a piece of bread flew out of his mouth. He didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t care. “Well known? No, I don’t think so. I mean, he walks around strutting his stuff. The girls seem to love him, although I’ve never seen him with a girlfriend so who knows what is up with that. Poor you, paired up with a dumb oaf like him.”
“Why do you say that? He seems perfectly nice to me.”
“He’s a football meathead, that’s what he is. Those football guys have nothing between their ears. It’s all about football and nothing else.”
“Oh, well,” I said, suddenly wanting to change the subject. “I just thought he looked familiar.”
“Probably just looks like all the other dumb jocks on the team,” he said.
I didn’t say anything. I just continued to eat my sandwich. Was Derek right? Was Dominic really just interested in football and nothing else? It didn’t seem likely. He’d seemed kind and intelligent when I had met him. Also, Professor Jackson had specifically said he had put me with him because he was smart and that we’d work well together. I highly doubted the professor would be wrong. As we stood up to leave after lunch, I told Derek that I was heading to the library to work on something. What I didn’t tell him was that I was on my way to work on something with Dominic. I didn’t think he would approve, even though there was nothing that I could do about him being my partner.
“See you later, sexy cheeks,” he said as he kissed me on the cheeks.
I smiled and walked away, wondering again why I felt so uneasy around him. He was my boyfriend. I wasn’t supposed to feel this way around him. I put the thoughts aside as I walked to the library. Dominic was already waiting there when I arrived, and he smiled when he saw me. Again, I had the impression that I had seen him before. Was that why I got a slight tingling feeling through my body when I saw him? I took a seat and grinned at him.
“I see you’ve already started,” I said and looked at the notes around him. This did not seem like the action of a man who was only into football. He took me through everything that he had already come up with, and I was surprised at home much he had done.
“I hope you don’t mind me starting without you. I had already started this before you were assigned as my partner. Like I said before, Sam is a nice guy, but I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I was going to do most of the work. But if you have another angle, I’m more than happy to change this.”
“Are you kidding me? This is great. Saves us a lot of time actually. It’s usually the planning that takes up the most the time. I appreciate this, and I’m very happy with it. Thanks for doing this. To be honest, this is exactly the sort of direction I was thinking of taking. I have a few ideas myself too, but they’re all going to be branching off what you have already done.”
We sat like that for an hour, just going through notes and taking time to work on things. It was nice to work with someone that had a similar mindset to me. I was so used to doing things myself, and not used to working as a team. But Dominic made things a lot easier for me. We worked well together. Every now and again, I caught him watching me, and I wondered if he was also wondering where we knew each other from. I was still sure that I had met him somewhere before. But every time I thought of bringing it up, I stopped myself. I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t want to harp on about it. Maybe he really just did remind me of someone from TV.
So far, Dominic was the only person that had been nice to me, and it was nice having someone to talk to at the college. I had Derek, of course, but it was nice finding someone else to talk to. And Dominic was certainly very easy to talk to. I felt a connection with him that I didn’t often feel with many people. Although, I had to remind myself that it wasn’t like he had gone out of his way to talk to me. He was only spending time with me because he had to. I glanced up at him and caught his eye. I smiled quickly and looked back down at my notes. If he didn’t want to be around me, it didn’t feel like it. I got the impression that he might feel the same way about me as I did about him. Things felt easy with us and I was glad that we’d been partnered up. It could’ve been a lot more awkward if I had been paired with someone I didn’t get along with.
“I can’t believe how much we’ve gotten done in such a short span of time,” I said to Dominic as I surveyed our work. “At this rate, we’ll be finished before the deadline.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, that would be good. Then we can just meet up for coffee and pretend to work.”
I smiled at that, and was just about to say something when Derek showed up. He frowned when he saw that I was sitting with Dominic.
“What’s going on here?” he said, and I immediately felt the heat rising to my face. There was a strange tone to his voice that I hadn’t heard before, and I didn’t like the way he was looking at the two of us. I felt embarrassed at how rude he was being.
“Hey, Derek. I’m just working on my project. The one I got from Professor Jackson.”
“With him?” he said and glanced at Dominic.
“Uh, yeah, we’re partners. Dominic, this is Derek. I . . . I’m not sure if you know each other,” I stumbled.
“Yeah, I’ve seen you around. Hi,” Derek said. “I’m Candice’s boyfriend,” he said and moved closer to me. I had never seen him act so jealous before. It was absolutely crazy considering I was clearly sitting in a library doing work. There was nothing for him to be jealous about. I felt mortified by his reaction, and Dominic was giving me kind of a weird look.
“Cool, yeah, I’ve seen you around too,” Dominic said calmly. “Well,” he said to me, “thanks for meeting up with me today. I think we got tons done. Want to meet again soon to carry on? I think we’re onto something good.”
“I’m not sure, man; I think I’ll be keeping the woman very busy, if you know what I mean,” Derek said and pulled me in again. I hated the way Derek spoke sometimes. He was always so different in front of my father. If my father could only see what he was like with his friends he might change his mind about him.
I frowned at him. What the hell was his problem? I ignored what he said and smiled at Dominic. “Sure, just let me know what day and time works best for you. And thanks for everything you’ve done already. See you soon.”
He gathered his notes and walked out, and I looked at Derek and grimaced.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You were so rude,” I said to him as I picked up my notebooks.
“Rude? I wasn’t rude. Anyway, why do I have to be nice to him? And why does he have to be your partner? I bet you he just chose you because he wants you.”
“He didn’t choose me,” I said with a deep sigh. “Professor Jackson put us together. Why are you acting so jealous? It’s just a project.”
“I’m not jealous,” he said. “But I just wanted to show him who the boss is around here. He can’t think he can just come in and take my girl away like that.”
I groaned. “And I take you’re the boss?”
“Nah, you’re the boss, of course,” he said and laughed. I didn’t say anything more as we walked out. Derek didn’t seem to notice, and he changed the subject and started talking to me about baseball.